00:02This is an unusual and potentially very serious workplace conflict and right now I'm hearing
00:07very very different narratives from both sides on the dispute.
00:11Macquarie University told me that this was basically something painful they had to do
00:15last year.
00:16They had to make about 61 staff redundant, nine of them forced.
00:20They said that basically no one ever likes to do this but that the process was rigorous
00:25and fair.
00:26Two of those academics though and the National Tertiary Education Union are painting a far
00:31more sinister picture.
00:33They say that the two academics Dr Joe Faulkner and Associate Professor Jemana Byer were on
00:38the front lines of increasingly fractious disputes with management and that as a result they've
00:44ended up paying for that with their jobs saying that they were targeted for redundancy in what
00:49would be an illegal breach of their workplace rights.
00:52Both academics sought internal reviews of the decision to make them redundant as is their
00:58right.
00:58And those reviews were pretty scathing about the process.
01:01It found that the university didn't act fairly and properly.
01:05The university told me that they considered those findings but ultimately decided not to
01:11adopt them and that they were well within their rights.
01:13The two academics are still unhappy and they're going to pursue this at the Fair Work Commission.
01:20The union and the NTU is financially supporting them to do this so ultimately those claims
01:26may end up being tested there and if the two parties can't come to some sort of agreement
01:31there it could go all the way to the federal court.
01:33And how are broader problems leading to conflict across the sector right now?
01:38Yeah, it's fair to say it's a really challenging time on campus right now.
01:42Gemma, there's been thousands of staff made redundant over the last year, a number of inquiries
01:48both at federal and state level have come to the bipartisan conclusion that there's problems
01:52with university governance and some staff believe that's the cause of a lot of the problems
01:58on campus.
02:00University leaders push back on that.
02:01They say they're dealing with a funding environment that's very unfair and makes things constantly
02:06difficult for them.
02:08As a result, we're seeing these job losses and also hundreds of course cuts and on top
02:12of that you have the challenge posed by artificial intelligence and an international student market
02:18that seems to have peaked.
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